F/Lt Maurice R. Hennigar

Up in the Air, 1940-1945

Oh, I have skipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies of laughter-silvered wings;

These are the first two lines of a poem by John Magee, Jr., one of the many pilots who did not survive World War Two. This poem is to the airmen of the Royal Canadian Air Force and is what "in Flander's Fields" was to the Canadian Military in the First World War." John Magee enlisted as a recent high school graduate, son of missionary parents in China, a very quite, private lad, rather lacking a military presence with his slight build and extreme youth for such a formidable task ahead. We served on the same Ontario base in the early part of the war, thus the personal observations.

John Magee's reactions to flight were based on piloting a fighter plane. It would seem that anyone who has soared alone in the solitude of space must have the same reactions but most lacked the ability to express those sensations and poetic feelings.

I am taken back, even more than fifty years; to the thrill of my first solo flight in a Fleet Finch biplane at Cape de la Madeleine, Quebec on a clear frosty winter afternoon. With heavy clothing and huge warm mitts, nail biting was not possible. My conscientious instructor looking on from the dispatching area probably did enough for the both of us! The fine teacher, Lloyd Allen from Halifax, had been a bush pilot in the Canadian North in the 30's, as were most of the civilian instructors on our station in 1940-1941.

The Cap aerodrome was a good-sized field without designated runways. The windsock determined the direction of takeoffs and landings. The snow of winter was not removed, probably due to a lack of equipment at the time. It was simply packed down in all direction with a heavy roller pulled by a tractor. This was done at night or when flying was cancelled. About half of our training planes were equipped with skis so that we could land at our base or on any level snow-covered field or lake. When taxiing toward a parking area one had to approach most carefully as there were no brakes on a ski plane.

On completing our required elements in ground school classes and passing a flying test of ups-downs and aerobatic maneuvers we were ready for a Service Flying School. A problem arose in that these schools had no space for our class of flying aces! What to do? We were retained and given an opportunity to do an extra 60 hours of flying experience on our own. We would check with our former instructors with a request for approval, file a flight plan, sign out a plane, and off we went. With no Sunday classes on many occasions I flew to Cartiervulle airport outside of Montreal where I would meet Hattie, Carl, Carl Jr. and Ross, who would take me to their home in Mount Royal where we were served a delicious dinner. Back to the airport in mid-afternoon and a return to base. What a life! On one other occasion, Lloyd Allen, my instructor, agreed to a trip to Grey Rocks Inn, a ski resort north of Montreal on a lake, if I would treat him to lunch. Such indulgence!

At the end of this marvelous add-on period of flying we were posted to Moncton Service Flying School in New Brunswick just as the snow and ice was melting on our airfield and all remaining personnel were moved to another base with real runways and the skis were replaced with wheels.

From Moncton, it wasn't too far to fly to upper Kennetcook on cross-country exercises. On one trip the pupils in the local school had an unexpected afternoon recess when a plane circled the building until it was evacuated. It was fortunate that many people had a good sense of humour and did not report our inane maneuvers to the authorities.

Some of us, after our Wings Parade, were posted to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where we spent the summer at an Air Navigation School learning to be pilot-navigators in case the crew navigator became unable to function in his role. We were thus destined to be flying over the briny.

England, Scotland, most interesting, air raids, London theatre, cold, blackouts, food rationing, Brussel sprouts, dance halls, tube stations as bedrooms, people, people, people, brave, brave people....

Off to Ceylon aboard ship, the equator crossing, Freetown, Capetown on the port side, Durban, Bombay, Madras, Columbo, then Koggala, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). We were now submarine hunters and flying off a freshwater lake inhabited by alligators. The planes were Canadian Catalinas. PBY's in the USA, they were slow reliable aircraft with a crew of seven. We were now in the war zone where Japan was the number one enemy. The station was just north of the equator; tropical with high humidity day and night so that bacteria flourished in scratches, cuts and bruises. Our crew spent a month of temporary duty flying off a lake outside Madras, India, where our role was escorting troop ships along the east coast toward Burma for reinforcements against the Japanese. Our longest flight was eighteen hours to be over a convoy by first light, circling it around and around all day, then returning to base after dark.

On being posted after a tour of duty, I flew on a commercial line to Bombay, then by ship through the Suez Canal to Liverpool, England.

Following a brief sojourn near Blackpool, I returned to Canada on the Queen Elizabeth I via New York.

My final year of the war was spent on the British Columbia coast where Anna and I lived in untold luxury in a 1 1/2 room cottage without electricity or plumbing along with about 200 other Air Force Couples in similar living accommodations. Again the air vehicles were Catalinas and the amphibious model, the Canso. From out of the west this time, the Japanese were again the foe to be fought, plus mountains and most difficult flying conditions.

With the pending arrival of VJ Day, real estate on our base took a rapid drop. We packed our chattels and left for Montreal and I to McGill University to pursue a degree and the next phase of our lives.

The experience during the war of discipline, travel, culture exposure, comradeship, challenges and excitement all add up to pleasant reflections as one reaches what society refers to as Old Age but in one's head it is decades away. Perhaps at the end, John Magee's "High Flight" is also an apt statement; it reads as follows:

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silver wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up long delirious buring blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or eagle flew;
And, while, with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand , and touch the face of God.